Newspaper Data Research Articles

Public responses to hard climate policies in OECD member countries: prevalence of contention at the post-adoption stage

ABSTRACT Effective climate action is likely to require hard climate policies (e.g. regulation, pricing, phase-outs), but such policies are often contested. Contention can arise not only during policy development and decision making but also at the post-adoption stage where adopted policies may be challenged, threatening policy durability. However, existing research has not systematically analyzed patterns of actual public responses to hard climate policies following their adoption. This is needed to understand response variety and the prevalence of contention. In this paper, we systematically assess public responses in a sample of 50 national-level hard climate policy packages (covering framework and energy policies) across 21 OECD member countries between 2009 and 2022. We categorize public responses (support, acceptance, non-acceptance, backlash) using a typology involving disapproval and mobilization to assess the prevalence of post-adoption contention among mass publics. We draw on newspaper data specific to each case to detect contention. Findings reveal a relatively low prevalence of post-adoption contentious responses to hard climate policies. Nonetheless, contention is pronounced in some cases and is mainly associated with carbon taxation/pricing although not exclusively. The most contentious responses, labeled as backlash, cluster in the latter half of the study period. Findings suggest a need to analyze drivers of contention among mass publics which may be complex and involve factors spanning policy design, institutional politics, and societal context.

Surnames in Local Newspapers and Social Mobility

This study aims to investigate social mobility by introducing an innovative data source: surnames in newspapers. The core hypothesis posits that frequent mentions in newspapers are indicative of greater social relevance. Through the collection of local newspaper data in the municipality of Modena, Italy, from 1921 to 2011, we examine variations in the relative representation of surnames in newspapers with respect to their presence in registry data. The results suggest that surnames in newspapers are not a random sample of the population, supporting the assumption that they reflect social significance. Surnames belonging to privileged groups exhibit a higher representation compared to other social groups. This higher relative representation seems to be transmitted to future generations and converges over time toward the mean, with variations depending on the considered high-status group. This kind of analysis could contribute to identifying different mobility patterns at the local level and represents a useful alternative when established data sources, such as income, education, and occupational data, are not available.

Public discourse about autonomous regions and de facto states

AbstractPublic discourse about autonomous regions and de facto ‐‐‐ or unrecognized ‐‐‐ states can influence the policies that parent states adopt to respond to these entities. I theorize that public discourse about autonomous regions will underscore commonalities with the parent state. Public discourse about de facto states will treat the state as a separate entity. I employ newspaper data as a measure of public discourse about Adjara and Abkhazia, Georgia. Using sentiment analysis and topic models, I show that public discourse about autonomous regions discusses domestic politics whereas discourse about de facto states emphasizes international relations. This analysis of public discourse offers insight into the ways in which people in parent states discuss separatist entities and how leaders may wish to steer public discourse about these regions in the future.

Local protest event analysis: providing a more comprehensive picture?

In exploring protest dynamics, Protest Event Analysis (PEA) has proven an indispensable analytic tool. Despite various improvements, PEA faces continuous challenges, notably the reproduction of media-specific selection biases. This research note aims to contribute to the literature seeking to mitigate these issues by exploring the potential of PEA based on local newspaper data, which tend to be less selective in their protest reporting. The article introduces an original local PEA dataset in Germany (2000–2020) and systematically compares it to existing national-level PEA data for Germany. The analysis shows that while both datasets pick up similar trends in terms of mobilisation waves, national level data focus on shorter periods of intense protest activity. Furthermore, issues of protest differ: material and social issues (including labour and environmental issues) are more prominent in local data, while cultural issues (including immigration and gender) are more prominent in national-level data.

Particle Placement in Hong Kong English: Independence from Great Britain as a Trigger of Structural Change?

In the framework of postcolonial Englishes and their evolutions, Hong Kong English represents an extraordinary case in that the political independence of Hong Kong from the British in 1997 did not result—as in most other cases—in a self-governing political body, but a formal re-integration of Hong Kong into China. As the handover of Hong Kong also marks a drastic linguistic re-orientation, this short-term diachronic paper studies newspaper data from before and after the 1997 handover. With a view to the structural object of investigation, particle placement, the exploration of relevant predictors and their effects in Hong Kong English sheds light on whether and, if so, how the end of British colonial rule has left linguistic traces in particle-placement choices. Using a sample of 322 particle verbs extracted from the South China Morning Post Corpus (SCMPC) and employing random forests, the study reports that pre- and post-handover constructional choices of particle placement are largely compatible with one another. Said choices are mainly guided by principles related to cognition and eurhythmy that—at least in the period observed—appear unlikely to be affected fundamentally by language-external political change.

Syrians in Turkey and their naturalization as Turkish citizens: A computational text analysis of newspaper data

Following the civil war in Syria in 2011, migration from Syria in massive numbers has caused various political, demographic, societal, and cultural challenges in Turkey. The focus of this research is on how the issue of naturalization of Syrians as Turkish citizens has been presented in Turkish newspapers and to what extent the dominant perspective on the issue has shifted over time. For our computational textual analysis of Turkish newspaper materials published between 2012 and 2019, we compiled a corpus consisting of 15,276 news items from four newspapers featuring the co-occurrence of the words “Syria*” (Suriye*) and “citizen*” (vatandaş*) in the main body of their text. The newspapers include mainstream and pro-government (Milliyet with liberal tendencies, Sabah with center-right tendencies), and left-wing (Sol, Evrensel) perspectives. A two-step textual analysis was conducted on the corpus. First, dictionary-based topic modeling was used to chart which broader topics Turkish citizenship of Syrians is predominantly linked to the data, and how the predominance of topics shifted over time. Second, a collocation analysis of the word “refugee” (mülteci) yields a more fine-grained picture of the specific words and expressions that tend to appear often when Syrian refugees are discussed. In both steps, an aggregated general analysis was complemented with separate newspaper-specific analyses, thus allowing for the comparison of different newspapers. Findings show that Syrians in Turkey predominantly feature in the context of diplomatic and societal topics. While mainstream news sources approach the issue less critically, left-wing newspapers show more sensitivity to migrant rights in Turkey.

Educational Sustainability: An Anthropocenic Study in the Wake of the 2022 Floods in Pakistan

Highlights Pakistan's worst flooding occurred in 2022 and highlighted the critical link between educational and environmental sustainability. The 2022 floods took a heavy toll on the lives of 27,148 children. Educational sustainability suffered, affecting 33 million students at all levels. This study employed qualitative methods to examine the scenario post the 2022 flood in Pakistan, focusing on educational, psychological, and physical vulnerabilities. Information was drawn from newspaper reports, NGO documents, and data from the disaster management department. The research identified significant challenges faced by school-age children and proposed solutions. Setting up temporary schools, wetland restoration, urban planning reforms, and inter-agency coordination are vital. Moreover, training teachers and involving children in environmental education and awareness campaigns are recommended. Beyond infrastructure improvements, the study underscores the importance of incorporating climate change, disaster management, and natural catastrophe risks into the curriculum and teaching methods to prepare the youth for future environmental challenges.

성인학습자의 검정고시학습 지원체제 형성 연구

Objectives This study tried to explore the Qualification Exam from the perspective of lifelong education within the broad of recognition of learning results. To provide basic data for research that explores the activation and direc-tion of learning results recognition for adult learners, considering the Qualification Exam as an academic recog-nition system for adult learners, the characteristics of the formation and change of the components that make up the learning support system were looked at.
 Methods To this end, the literature research method was applied. Various documents, research reports, stat-istical data, academic papers and dissertations, and past newspaper data related to the academic recognition sys-tem and Qualification Exam were collected, and public policy information and public relations data were collected and analyzed by visiting government websites.
 Results As a result of the study, the functions and characteristics of three components of the system supporting the learning of the Qualification Exam for adult learners were confirmed. The first, they are laws and institutions. The relevant laws laid the groundwork for the academic recognition system, and the academic recognition sys-tem, including Qualification Exam, provided educational opportunities and created an environment for learning support system based on this. The second, they are support policies and institutions. Educational institutions op-erate the class to prepare Qualification Exam, and provide learning space. The driving force for learning support has been supported by support projects and policies. Finally, the learner who motivates the above components to achieve their goals is both the target and the result.
 Conclusions The Qualification Exam was understood as a concept with a limited function of ‘the tests to get a school diplomas that people who could not attend school because of poverty'. However, through this study, it was confirmed that the Qualification Exam pursues the philosophy of lifelong education as it functions as a system for recognizing academic background and learning results in which the elements of law, system, policy, educational institution, and learner are linked.

The impact of public health emergencies on small and medium-sized enterprises: Evidence from China

This article proposes a machine learning-based method to quantify the impact of public health emergencies on the economic benefits and credit risks of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Using natural language processing and text analysis methods, we construct the degree of public health emergencies index using Chinese newspaper data. Based on the panel data of Chinese SMEs, we find that public health emergencies have a strong negative impact on the economic benefits of SMEs, and the impact is uneven across industries. In addition to declining economic benefits, we determine that SMEs' credit default risk is a more serious problem. Our predictive analysis of SMEs' credit default risk after COVID-19 indicates the benefits of using machine learning methods in credit risk assessment and control, providing precise assistance for SMEs.

Analysis of Agropreneurship Potential in the Middle of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Kupang City

This study examines agropreneurship in Kupang City and adjacent areas during the COVID-19 pandemic. The author uses qualitative descriptive methodologies to observe, interview, and document ten local agropreneurs. Newspaper, social media, and YouTube data supplemented the investigation. The results demonstrate that agropreneurs have product quality, reliable output, experience and love of farming, natural resource potential, and commercial and agricultural infrastructure. Agropreneurs benefit from rising demand for fresh veggies, close marketing networks, and reliable business even in times of crisis. However, this sector faces several weaknesses and threats, including inadequate farming equipment, limited capital, a lack of guidance for agropreneurs, limited land, and limited market information, as well as a lack of supporting institutions, high costs, competition, and PSBB-induced market decline. This research helps agropreneurs during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic understand entrepreneurship in Kupang City and the surrounding area. Results may vary by location and circumstance.

Text data mining on current newspaper articles from the United States with ProQuest TDM Studio

This paper introduces and reviews a novel digital resource and service that offers access to a wealth of newspaper data from the United States for Text Data Mining (TDM) and Natural Language Processing (NLP). Due to copyright restrictions, gaining access to relevant text corpora of this sort can be difficult. However, ProQuest TDM Studio and similar services provide researchers with access to data and resources that were previously unavailable for TDM to this extent. By using these tools, researchers can gain insights into current newspaper discourses that still have a tremendous impact on debates in society and on political decisions.After giving an account of the structural and procedural elements that are of relevance for TDM research projects when working with data providers, the paper describes the newspaper data that ProQuest TDM Studio makes available and reviews the ways in which this data can be examined via the tools that ProQuest TDM Studio’s research environment offers. After contrasting this setup with other data providers and their systems, the paper concludes with an analysis of the opportunities and challenges of working with data providers and research environments such as those provided by ProQuest TDM Studio.

The influence of mass media on the popularity of politicians

Politicians compete with each other for votes, political positions and popularity in an attempt to translate their ideological ideas into policy. Due to a lack of face-to-face interactions, voters base their vote mainly on what they see in the media. To measure the influence of media on political success during routine periods, this paper links popularity polls to media coverage of individual politicians. Using automated content analysis on longitudinal newspaper data (2003–2019), the visibility of individual politicians and the used tone was analyzed. We find that media visibility has an impact on popularity. This media effect is especially important for MPs seeing that the function of higher-ranking politicians already affects their popularity without media visibility. A significant effect is also found for tone on popularity scores. We find a negativity bias in which negative news affects the popularity of politicians, whereas positive news does not make a difference.

Historical newspaper data: A researcher’s guide

Digitized historical newspaper databases offer a valuable research tool. A rapidly expanding set of studies use these databases to address a wide range of topics. We review this literature and provide a toolkit for researchers interested in working with historical newspaper data. We provide a brief description of the evolution of historical newspapers, focusing on aspects that are likely to have implications for the design of empirical studies. We then review the main databases in use. We also discuss some key challenges in using these data, most importantly the fact that even the most extensive datasets contain only a selected sample of the universe of historical newspaper articles. We offer tools for evaluating the comprehensiveness of available newspaper datasets, show how to assess potential identification concerns, and suggest some solutions.

Empathy, geography and immigration: Political framing of sea migrant arrivals in European media

How is European media framing sensitive to events such as refugee border crossing and irregular migrants’ arrivals? While news outlets adjust the tone around immigration following ideology, do the contextual characteristics of these incidents matter? This article explores two factors that could explain the varying framing of these highly political events in European mainstream media. One explanation focuses on the role of migrants’ conditions, such as migrants’ way of transit and subsequent human sufferance (or lack thereof). Another emphasizes the role of geography, in particular the location of migrants’ territorial identification relative to the receiving communities. Focusing on the case of sea migration and small boat arrivals in Southern Europe, I argue that the emotional triggers determined by migrants’ transit and their geographical point of detection systematically moderate each other, and jointly affect how the media describe these cross-border immigration events. Empirically, the article presents original newspaper data from Greece, Italy and Spain that collates geospatial information on immigrants’ sea transit and the related number of injuries and deaths during transit. Statistical results indicate that media framing is more sympathetic to events involving suffering migrants, but that this positive framing diminishes if migrants are located only at the border of the national territory and disappears if the migrants are identified in more distant, foreign waters. The results suggest nuanced conditions in which migration can be presented by the media aside from their ideological lenses.

A multidisciplinary investigation of Storms Ciara and Dennis, February 2020

High magnitude storms have periodically impacted the communities of Western Britain and this storm threat is predicted to increase with climate change. Understanding the factors that contribute to storm catastrophe is essential to mitigate the effects of future storms. This multidisciplinary study collectively analyses meteorological, tidal gauge and newspaper data from Storms Ciara and Dennis in February 2020 to assess the environmental, social and political impacts and causes of the catastrophe in Western Britain. The analysis shows that although the storm period comprising Ciara and Dennis was a meteorological climate anomaly and short-term local authority and community responses were effective, shortcomings in governmental policies likely enhanced storm impacts. The study findings suggest that substantive changes to UK government coastal and fluvial management policies and the wider long-term climate change strategy are required to address climate change risk and reduce community storm vulnerability in Western Britain. The key roles of the media in enhancing public hazard preparedness and raising awareness of the impacts of climate change catastrophes and the wider climate crisis are exhibited. A multidisciplinary mixed methods analysis combining quantitative meteorological and tidal data, qualitative newspaper data and peer-reviewed research is shown to identify the likely cause of catastrophe and can inform future climate change vulnerability mitigation.

A New Supply Bottlenecks Index Based on Newspaper Data

A New Supply Bottlenecks Index Based on Newspaper Data

Testing the Law of Crime Concentration in Georgetown, Guyana

A consistent finding in criminology is that crime occurs and is concentrated at micro places within cities. To date, most efforts that revealed crime at micro places were completed for developed world settings. Here we draw on newspaper data to examine whether the law of crime concentration is relevant to the developing world city of Georgetown, Guyana. Our analysis showed that robberies and murders were concentrated on 2.77% and 1.96% of the city’s streets. Group-based trajectory analysis revealed an unstable relationship between street segments and crime occurrence, but two areas of Georgetown emerged as centers for robberies and murders. Despite Georgetown’s low population density relative to other Latin American cities, crime is concentrated to a few streets.

근대 신문자료를 통해 본 기생의 예술활동 연구

The purpose of this study is to reveal the identity and characteristics of modern parasitic art as a performing artist through the art activities of gisaengs shown in modern newspaper data. In modern times, with the abolition of the status system, the official dance of the court or local Gyobang was dismantled. At the same time, the public's interest and image of Gisaeng have been expanded and reproduced. Modern newspaper data left the most information and records about Gisaeng. In modern newspaper data, the artistic activities of gisaengs are classified into fairs, concerts, restaurants, modern theaters, and art education of gisaengs. The characteristic of the modern gisaeng's artistic activities is that the performance was moved from the space of ritual to the space of entertainment. At the same time, it contributed greatly to the formation of a new genre called 'dance'.

Postcolonial churn and the impact of the criminal justice system on Aboriginal people in Western Australia, 1829–2020

This article analyses how the criminalisation and imprisonment of Aboriginal people operated as tools of colonisation in Western Australia (WA) in the nineteenth century, and how this shaped the postcolonial criminal justice system. The racialised double standard embedded in the colonial foundations of state institutions, including the criminal justice system, rippled across generations of Aboriginal people: a reiterative and disruptive process that we dub the ‘postcolonial churn’. This term, adapted from the ‘carceral churn’, describes the destabilising mobilisations embedded in carceral and settler-colonial logics over the long term. It uses data from archival prison registers (Rottnest Island 1838–1931 and Roebourne Prison 1908–1961), as well as historic court, police and newspaper data to map the use of the criminal code in protecting and expanding colonial property rights in the original waves of settler-colonisation. WA is an outlier among the Australian colonies: it was the largest in terms of size (2,642,753 km2), the last colony to receive European convicts (1850–1868), and the last to be awarded self-government (1890). This created a situation where the British government dictated policy for legal forms of subjugation of Aboriginal people at the frontier (first for resisting pastoral industry, later as workers in it) which butted up against localised extra-legal violence by police and settlers. We can trace this dichotomy between policy and practice in the development of surveillance and policing of Aboriginal populations across time and settler-colonial space due to the protracted pace of frontier ‘development’. Revealing the mediated historical aspects of structural racism is crucial to analysing the persistence of racialised policing in postcolonial settings and understanding why, despite repeated inquiries into mistreatment of Aboriginal people, institutional inertia remains.

Telling a Different Story: A Longitudinal Investigation of News Diversity in Four Countries

ABSTRACT News diversity is an important concern of journalism scholars, as its presence or absence can have a profound effect on democratic debate and the information available to citizens. Many have speculated that news diversity decreases over time, due to changing economic circumstances. This expectation especially applies to newspapers. Using nearly two decades of newspaper data from four European countries (Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, UK), we do not find this expected decrease in news diversity. When conducting pairwise, automated comparisons between articles published on the same day in the same country, we rather find a modest over time increase in diversity between newspapers. This result suggests that newspapers differentiate rather than converge in the content they offer, shedding a more positive light on the evolution of the press in our current high-choice media environments.